Ahhmagosh look I updated!

Sorry it took so long... I felt bad so I made it extra long for everyone. :)    I referenced Doctor Who in this chapter... first one to catch the reference gets a dedication!

Silverbrine's OC Silver was also introduced in this chapter. See if you can find her!

Anways, enjoy the chapter!

~~~~~

        I couldn’t see. Darkness was my prison, and it was inescapable. I felt a searing pain in my chest, where I assumed the sword was. I tried to look around, but found that nothing was there. I was floating in a void, with code drifting aimlessly around me. I looked down, hoping that I at least had a body. I did, but it was rapidly unraveling into code.

What the Nether-! I flailed my arms in panic, which unfortunately quickened the process. Strings of ones and zeroes swam through the void, drowning me in... whatever the heck this was. It was like lava, but as black as night and not hot, but rather gelatinous and slightly cold. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and was quickly losing my ability to move. I began to give up hope as the codes began to take up every space of my vision until everything was a blurred white. I closed my eyes, accepting my fate.

“Shut up!”

I was suddenly jarred into reality. The void melted away, but the pain remained. I groaned, not even trying to sit up. I didn’t know whether I was dead or alive, but I hoped that it was the latter.

“He’s awake!” Someone said.

“Be careful,” another warned. “You don’t want to-”

Someone grabbed my shoulders and shook me ferociously, and my eyes snapped open. “Hey, wake up you idiot! You scared us all to death!”

My head roared in protest and my chest throbbed with pain. “Ok, ok, stop. I’m sorry.” I rasped, finding speech more difficult than usual.

As the world stopped spinning, I saw that the figure above me was Gareth, now sporting a long sleeved black shirt. “Sorry,” He said, letting go.

“Gareth-!” The voice next to him shouted, which I recognized as Kristie. “You’re going to kill him at this rate!”

I smiled weakly. “I’m fine... Really. Just let me-” I tried to sit up, but a searing pain caused me to cringe. “Agh-!” I gritted my teeth and tried not to shout.

Kristie pushed me back onto the bed. “Stay down. I think we need one more health potion. She rushed out of what appeared to be a wooden door. I took this opportunity to look around. I appeared to be in a wooden room of some kind, with colored wood and paintings adorning the walls. There was a bookshelf here and there, but the thing that really caught my eye was the row of beds lining the left side of the room. There were probably thirteen of them, the red sheets neatly folded on top of the while woolen sheets. I glanced down at my sheets, which were completely strewn about. I sort of felt embarrassed, but I wasn’t the neatest person. If you could call me that.

“Where am I?” I asked Gareth in a strained voice.

“The infirmary,” He replied, plucking a book off of a nearby shelf. “You’ve been out for like two days.”

“Two days-!” I almost choked. “That long, huh?”

“Yeah,” replied Gareth, leafing through the pages with a bored expression. “You scared all of us to death.”

“What happened?” I questioned further, curious as to what went on while I was out.

“Well, after you jumped in front of me, everyone freaked. Oh, and thanks for that, by the way. Kristie yelled at the guard so loud that I’m sure she broke him. He hasn’t come near us since. Ha. It took forever to convince them that I wasn’t ‘A hostile,’ but I guess they sort of believed us when I talked to them. No one’s quite figured that out yet. Then they carried you back here, and gave us a tent to share. I can’t go out in the sunlight, though, so I have to wear a helmet whenever I leave a building.” He knocked on a leather helmet I only just now realized that he had on. “Pretty nifty. Anyway, that’s what happened. When Kristie gets back with the health potion, we can take to the leader of this village. He says he knows you.”

I would’ve laughed if it didn’t hurt so bad. “Knows me? I doubt that. I’ve been running all my life, so I haven’t exactly had time to stop and chat.”

Gareth shrugged, giving up on the book and haphazardly cramming it back into the shelf. “Whatever. Worth a visit, I guess.”

I nodded, not entirely convinced. I don’t remember much past about two years ago, so he could be right. We sat in silence for a few moments before Kristie came crashing through the doors.

“I’m back!” She called, holding a glowing pink potion in her hands. “One more should do it.” She handed it to me. “Here. Chug.”

“Chug! Chug! Chug!” Gareth chanted. Kristie glared at him and his voice faltered with a quiet snicker.

I rolled my eyes and swallowed the potion. I got this weird sensation and all of the pain subsided. The throbbing in my head stopped instantly, and the wound on my chest disappeared. I sat up, bouncing slightly on the bed. “Huh. I could never brew very well-”

“He blew up the cave,” Gareth added.

“Shut up. Anyway, I never really knew how these things worked.”

“It took ten to fix your broken code,” Kristie said. “Potions don’t work very well on glitches, so we had to use a lot just to get to this point.”

“Huh. Never knew that,” I said sourly. “Just add it to the list of inconveniences, I guess.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Kristie said, face scolding. “C’mon, we’ll show you around.”

***

As I came to find out, we were in a small village in a Taiga biome. All of the buildings were made with spruce wood with cobblestone roofs and sometimes accents. There were an absurd amount of windows, because apparently they needed to save the torches for the small pillars spread around the village. They had put wool on top of spruce fencing, and had a daylight sensor that would light the wool on fire every night. They would change the wool in the morning, because it had almost always burned out by morning, according to Kristie.

“What about when it rains?” I had asked.

“They position guards outside of houses,” She said. “The mobs aren’t merciful, so there are a lot of precautions required.”

Speaking of guards, there seemed to be a lot of them. They were all over the village, walking the cobblestone streets or casually chatting to the residents. None of the people here seemed to be regular villagers(who were quite dumb), but actual people. This was a bit rare, as the world seemed to stretch on forever, and most humans had ventured to the far reaches of Minecraftia and never returned.

There was a castle at the far edge of the village, made of stone blocks tinted blue with dye. Dark blue flags waved in the wind on the four towers on the edges, all surrounding the main tower(That I pointed out was a bit taller, but apparently it was supposed to be that way) and the interior. It actually wasn’t that large of a castle, truth to be told, but it was extremely complex. The main gates let to a courtyard, which led to the interior that stretched partway underground and included a labyrinth. The towers had blue banners on either side(Apparently the leader had a thing for blue), and four windows.

A cobblestone wall lined the village, with archer’s towers on all four sides. We didn’t get to see it, but we were told that there was an extensive fenced-in wheat farm on the other side of the wall. They never mentioned carrots or potatoes, which I found quite rude.

If you hadn’t already figured it out, I was in a cranky mood. You can hardly blame me, though. In just a few days, I’d had my home destroyed, gotten possessed, watched a village burn to the ground, and had an arrow shot into my chest. I was also extremely exhausted, and my eyes were growing dimmer because of it. It bothered me sometimes when they did that, because I’d always wondered what would happen if I let them go out completely. I didn’t want to think about it. So you can imagine that I wasn’t pleased when after the extremely long tour, Kristie said that the village leader wanted to see me and it was “Of utmost importance that I comply.”

“No,” I argued. “I want to go to sleep and this ‘leader’ can shut up about it.”

Kristie sighed. “Five minutes. That’s all it’ll take.”

“If I leave Gareth alone, he’ll burn the whole place to the ground.” I said, giving him a look.

“Hey!” He protested. “I’m not a new-spawned. I wouldn’t burn the whole thing down. Then I’d have no alibi.”

I sighed and Kristie facepalmed. “Just... Come on.” She said. “We need as many people that don’t want to kill us as we can get, so it’s best to be on everyone’s good side.”

I couldn’t argue with that. I just stuffed my hands in my pockets and obediently followed Kristie to the castle. The guards and citizens gave me weird looks, some even eying weapons as I walked by. One guard even partially drew his sword as if in warning. I looked away.

“Mummy, what’s wrong with his eyes?” Asked a little blonde boy to his mother, who hurried him away.

“I don’t know, Jaime. Let’s go home now.”

“But I thought we were going to the store-”

“Not right now.”

She grabbed his hand and quickly left, not stopping until they both disappeared around the corner. I sighed.

I was suddenly aware that a shadow had covered the three of us. I looked up. The gates towered over us, two guards standing outside of it.

“Hello,” Said the man on the left. “How can we help you?” I looked his way and he seemed to sour. “And why are you here?”

I grimaced and throught it best that Kristie do the talking.

“We’ve been summoned by your leader,” She said. “He said that he wanted to see him.” She nodded at me.

The guards eyed me. “I can see why,” Said the man. “Was it a crime?”

I quickly shook my head. “No, I haven’t done anything. He just said that he knew me.” Now that I got a good look at him, I recognized the guard as the man who threw the sword. “Nice throw, by the way.” I added.

He looked me over. “Oh yeah, I remember you. You had that talking zombie friend. One wrong move and I’ll make sure that there are no more health potions to save you this time.”

“Stop it,” Said the other guard, who was surprisingly a young girl. “He hasn’t done anything. Just let him in.”

The other guard sighed roughly. “Fine, fine. Go.”

The gates slowly opened and they allowed us in. I mouthed a quick “Thank you” to the girl, who nodded in reply. We walked through the extensive courtyard and up an elegant staircase. We knocked on the door, which was answered by a short guard with frizzy brown hair and a bright smile. She opened the door and let us inside. The entire interior was decorated with banners and paintings, and there was a blue carpet leading to a door at the end of a long hallway. Redstone lamps lined the walls, with switches next to them. We hesitantly followed the carpet, seeing lots of spruce doors all along the sides of the hallway.

We finally came to the door at the end, which we opened. Inside was a huge throne room, lit by sunlight and adorned with blue wool and lapis lazuli decorations. The most surprising thing, though, was the person sitting in the golden throne. He didn’t appear to be a ruler or king at all, having hardly any rich belongings on him. He wore just dark blue jeans and a cyan T-Shirt, which appeared to be stained in places. A diamond sword was leaned lopsidedly on the side of the throne, and a crown was hung from the top of it.

When he saw me, he immediately got up and approached me, his blue eyes warm. “Brother! It’s good to see you! I thought you were dead!”

I was completely unprepared when he embraced me in a strong hug. Kristie and Gareth stared, mouths agape. Their eyes begged for an explanation, but I didn’t know I could supply one.

“I’m sorry,” I said, awkwardly pushing him away. “But I don’t think I know who you are.”